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Jean-Michel Basquiat, the late neo-expressionist whose tragic life story inspired a 1996 film, used invisible ink to draw secret figures in at least one of his early paintings, Artnet News reported last month. The figures are easily visible under UV light, and more of the artist's work from this period may contain such hidden drawings.

Invisible ink has been around since at least the fourth century BC; it's mentioned in a treatise on secret communications by Aeneas Tacticus. It's familiar to anyone who has ever gotten their hand stamped when they entered a club so they could be readmitted later by holding it under UV light. There are many different types, but substances that glow in response to UV light include lemon juice, body fluids (hence the use of UV light in forensics), sunscreen, and some soaps and laundry detergents.

But invisible ink is rarely used by artists. One notable exception is the Chinese-born British artist Aowen Jin, whose 2015 exhibit at London's Horniman Museum featured a series of hand-drawn invisible-ink illustrations, which can only be seen under UV light, on the walls and floor of the Music Gallery Performance Space. Apparently, Basquiat sometimes used fluorescent materials and signed one 1982 canvas, Orange Sports Figure, in invisible ink. But this is the first known instance of the artist intentionally embedding secret drawings into a painting.

Basquiat is a classic rags-to-riches story, without the fairytale ending. He struggled in school and dropped out at 17 to attend an alternative high school in Manhattan that caters to creative sorts for whom traditional education was difficult. Kicked out by his father, he crashed on friends' couches and sold T-shirts and postcards to make ends meet.

Enlarge/ A Sotheby's employee hangs a name plate near Jean-Michel Basquiat's Untitled (Pollo Frito) on November 2, 2018, at Sotheby's Auction house in New York.

Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Image

In 1976, he and his best friend, Al Diaz, made a splash spray painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan as "SAMO." The two fell out, ending the SAMO project, but the recognition Basquiat gained as a result was the start of his stellar rise in the art world. In 1981, he had his first public showing as part of a New York/New Wave exhibit in Long Inland City, which also featured works by Keith Haring, Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, William Burroughs, and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Soon Basquiat was selling a single painting for as much as $25,000, a princely sum to a man who had been homeless just a few years before. He collaborated with Andy Warhol and David Bowie. He dated a then-unknown Madonna. He painted while clad in expensive Armani suits and was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. But he also developed a crippling heroin addiction and died of an overdose in his art studio in 1988 at 27.

“It’s so exciting to see something that’s literally invisible that the artist put there on purpose.”

It's often said the best thing a promising artist can do is to die young, and that was certainly true of Basquiat; the posthumous market for his work boomed. It's the early paintings from 1981-1983—before the drug addiction took hold—that are the most valued by the art world. (One 1982 painting broke records at a 2017 Sotheby's auction, selling for $110.5 million.) That's how art conservator Emily MacDonald-Korth made the unexpected discovery of invisible ink drawings back in December: a client asked for her expert analysis to determine whether his original Basquiat was really completed in 1981.

That process included pigment analysis and viewing the canvas under both infrared and UV light. (Per Artnet News, this is "typically used to spot varnish or other signs a painting has undergone repair.") That's when she saw the markings: two arrows drawn in what seemed to be black-light crayon. They were identical, readily visible arrows drawn on the canvas. Basquiat may have just been doing so as a kind of guide as he worked on the painting, but he did sometimes paint over images and leave them particularly visible. So MacDonald-Korth thinks it's consistent with Basquiat's "use of erasure."

And it should be very easy to check other paintings by the artist for similar secret drawings—like another 1981 canvas, Poison Oasis, which also features arrows. "Anyone who owns a Basquiat should get a long-wave UV flashlight. They're compact little flashlights. You can get one on Amazon," MacDonald-Korth told Artnet News. "It's so exciting to see something that's literally invisible that the artist put there on purpose, completely intentionally."

Those of us too cash-strapped to afford an original Basquiat will just have to follow the hunt from afar.

It’s kind of funny - artwork generally needs to be protected fron UV, not exposed to it. If you had one if these, I guess you’d want to limit viewings pretty severely.

The long-wave UV LED flashlights aren't horrible; short-wave is much more damaging. Still, you're correct, you'd want to limit the painting's exposure.

That said, a lot of artists tend to use less-than-archival materials. Quite a lot of 20th century art is going to turn out to have a very limited lifespan, prolonged by prudent care-taking but nonetheless quite short.

Does painting beautiful things by talented people just have less value anymore because of photography? Maybe if not rebellious, edgy or making some cultural point it just cannot be acclaimed. I cannot see wanting the Sotheby's example in a residence that my guests and I would gaze at in admiration of the artist skill and vision. Certainly glad for the most part people are free to spend their own capital on such things. This look more like what we get from public funding of the arts, where only "art" experts spending other peoples money find value.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man, this looks like something my kid drew in kindergarten.

When wealthy folks spend substantial money on this kind of art, I just try to remind myself that they are free to spend it however they like, and keeping that 'mad money' in circulation is good for the economy.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man, this looks like something my kid drew in kindergarten.

Try selling some of your youngster's kindergarten artwork and see how far you get.

I'm sorry, but SixDegrees was right; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Most artists churning out this kind of work won't sell any more than SixDegrees would. This artist got lucky and "discovered", and now these works are considered desirable, but the desire is entirely subjective.

My understanding is that good art is supposed to "say something" to its audience. Now, maybe to many people this artist's works say something good, but to my apparently ignorant eye, they say "I should have got a real job", only it turns out he got lucky not to have needed one.

I'm sorry, but SixDegrees was right; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Most artists churning out this kind of work won't sell any more than SixDegrees would. This artist got lucky and "discovered", and now these works are considered desirable, but the desire is entirely subjective.

My understanding is that good art is supposed to "say something" to its audience. Now, maybe to many people this artist's works say something good, but to my apparently ignorant eye, they say "I should have got a real job", only it turns out he got lucky not to have needed one.

Like any complex and advanced human activity, technology, art or otherwise, it requires some context and historical knowledge to properly understand everything that the work represents, what the artist was trying to say, and why it was important and notable at the time.

It might look like scribbles of a child to the ignorant eye, but that would be an opinion from a place of ignorance, like you said.

It's fine to not enjoy it on a purely aesthetic level, but to dismiss the artist and their work without learning more about why it is considered important work would be a mistake, IMO.

For those skeptics who really would like some explanation of modern art, I strongly recommend Susie Hodge’s 2012 book “Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done That: From Slashed Canvas to Unmade Bed, Modern Art Explained.”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man, this looks like something my kid drew in kindergarten.

Try selling some of your youngster's kindergarten artwork and see how far you get.

Figure of Eight, Skegness (1949)

The painting "Figure of Eight, Skegness" (referring to a roller coaster at the Skegness amusement park) was displayed at a public library art exhibition in Loughborough, England. Critics praised it as a "fine specimen of modernism in colour." But then its creator was revealed to be 6-year-old Tommy Warbis from Barrow-on-Soar. Tommy had plastered a piece of white paper with multi-colored paints and then allowed his pet cat Jill to sit in the middle while the paint was still wet. Tommy's father, a commercial artist who disliked modern art, had been invited to submit work to the show and sent his son's work instead "as a joke to test people's knowledge of art."

Mermaid (1954)

A 3-week exhibition of modern art in Birmingham town hall included a piece by a previously unknown artist, Jan Michel, which won praise for its picassolike features. Only as the show was closing did Ronald Allin, a musician with the Birmingham city orchestra, reveal that "Jan Michel" was actually his 8-year-old son Michael. The father had told his son to paint "anything he liked" and then secretly included the result in the exhibition. He titled the piece "Mermaid" because the image bore a vague resemblance to that mythical creature. The exhibition director said it was a pity the joke was only revealed on the last day because "it might have attracted more people."

Ketchup Art (2007)

The artwork of Freddie WR Linsky attracted interest when it was posted on Charles Saatchi's online gallery. A Berlin gallery even invited Linsky to showcase his talents in an upcoming exhibition. What the critics didn't know was that Linsky was only 2 years old. Many of his pieces included ketchup, sprayed while sitting in his high chair. The works had been posted online by his mother, Estelle Lovatt, a lecturer at Hampstead School of Art, who explained that Freddie always got very excited by the messes he made, and she became curious whether critics "would be encouraging or dismissive if I showed his work online."

Abstract Artist Aelita Andre (2009)

The paintings of a new abstract artist, Aelita Andre, were featured at a Melbourne exhibition, alongside works by established photographers Nikka Kalashnikova and Julia Palenov. The art critic for The Age noted that Andre's works were "credible abstractions, maybe playing on Asian screens with their reds... heavily reliant on figure/ground relations." But Andre (who was Kalashnikova's daughter) was only 22-months old. The museum had not been aware of this when it agreed to exhibit her work. Nor had The Age's critic known this when he reviewed it. Aelita's mother said she simply wanted her daughter's work to be judged on its merits

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man, this looks like something my kid drew in kindergarten.

Try selling some of your youngster's kindergarten artwork and see how far you get.

Figure of Eight, Skegness (1949)

The painting "Figure of Eight, Skegness" (referring to a roller coaster at the Skegness amusement park) was displayed at a public library art exhibition in Loughborough, England. Critics praised it as a "fine specimen of modernism in colour." But then its creator was revealed to be 6-year-old Tommy Warbis from Barrow-on-Soar. Tommy had plastered a piece of white paper with multi-colored paints and then allowed his pet cat Jill to sit in the middle while the paint was still wet. Tommy's father, a commercial artist who disliked modern art, had been invited to submit work to the show and sent his son's work instead "as a joke to test people's knowledge of art."

Mermaid (1954)

A 3-week exhibition of modern art in Birmingham town hall included a piece by a previously unknown artist, Jan Michel, which won praise for its picassolike features. Only as the show was closing did Ronald Allin, a musician with the Birmingham city orchestra, reveal that "Jan Michel" was actually his 8-year-old son Michael. The father had told his son to paint "anything he liked" and then secretly included the result in the exhibition. He titled the piece "Mermaid" because the image bore a vague resemblance to that mythical creature. The exhibition director said it was a pity the joke was only revealed on the last day because "it might have attracted more people."

Ketchup Art (2007)

The artwork of Freddie WR Linsky attracted interest when it was posted on Charles Saatchi's online gallery. A Berlin gallery even invited Linsky to showcase his talents in an upcoming exhibition. What the critics didn't know was that Linsky was only 2 years old. Many of his pieces included ketchup, sprayed while sitting in his high chair. The works had been posted online by his mother, Estelle Lovatt, a lecturer at Hampstead School of Art, who explained that Freddie always got very excited by the messes he made, and she became curious whether critics "would be encouraging or dismissive if I showed his work online."

Abstract Artist Aelita Andre (2009)

The paintings of a new abstract artist, Aelita Andre, were featured at a Melbourne exhibition, alongside works by established photographers Nikka Kalashnikova and Julia Palenov. The art critic for The Age noted that Andre's works were "credible abstractions, maybe playing on Asian screens with their reds... heavily reliant on figure/ground relations." But Andre (who was Kalashnikova's daughter) was only 22-months old. The museum had not been aware of this when it agreed to exhibit her work. Nor had The Age's critic known this when he reviewed it. Aelita's mother said she simply wanted her daughter's work to be judged on its merits

There are many more...

So why aren't you cashing in?

Also, if technical proficiency with realism is held by you in higher regard, would you consider all those paintings of dogs playing poker, or black velvet Elvis paintings, to be fine art?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man, this looks like something my kid drew in kindergarten.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” neglects the fact that there are real patterns and references to be recognized in certain types of media. The same is true with certain types of Jazz, some people think it sounds like nonsense and others don’t. The people that don’t (or don’t care to) recognize the patterns, which may utilize certain scales, styles or even references to other songs might say the same thing “oh my kid could do that”. No, your kid couldn’t have possibly had those thoughts when designing the piece. The intent beyond the work is an important factor, and that can never exist (or be respected) with a child.

I’ll fully admit I don’t understand what Basquiat is going for in his art, and that to me it kind of looks like a frustrated attempt to recreate urban bar bathroom graffiti, but I’m sure the people that do appreciate it immensely.

Also, if technical proficiency with realism is held by you in higher regard... [snip]

Straw man... show me where I said that. I actually find a lot of Modern and Abstract art both interesting and moving. My post was in response to your provably wrong assertion that the "art" of infants and children could not be mistaken for important works by professional critics or sold as "real" art.

While there are brilliant works in these genres, there is also a sizable clique of charlatans fulfilling the same role as the oxygen-free cable cadre of magical thinking audiophiles. Their underlying conceit is that you couldn't possibly understand unless you are one of them.

I'm sorry, but SixDegrees was right; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Most artists churning out this kind of work won't sell any more than SixDegrees would. This artist got lucky and "discovered", and now these works are considered desirable, but the desire is entirely subjective.

My understanding is that good art is supposed to "say something" to its audience. Now, maybe to many people this artist's works say something good, but to my apparently ignorant eye, they say "I should have got a real job", only it turns out he got lucky not to have needed one.

Like any complex and advanced human activity, technology, art or otherwise, it requires some context and historical knowledge to properly understand everything that the work represents, what the artist was trying to say, and why it was important and notable at the time.

It might look like scribbles of a child to the ignorant eye, but that would be an opinion from a place of ignorance, like you said.

It's fine to not enjoy it on a purely aesthetic level, but to dismiss the artist and their work without learning more about why it is considered important work would be a mistake, IMO.

Whenever I try contemplating Basquiat's work, I can't get past the "waste of my time" feeling. Sorry, but life is short. When I contemplate something, I want it to elevate my soul.

By now I learned a lot about the "artist's" interesting life. But I still prefer looking at real art.

I'm sorry, but SixDegrees was right; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Most artists churning out this kind of work won't sell any more than SixDegrees would. This artist got lucky and "discovered", and now these works are considered desirable, but the desire is entirely subjective.

My understanding is that good art is supposed to "say something" to its audience. Now, maybe to many people this artist's works say something good, but to my apparently ignorant eye, they say "I should have got a real job", only it turns out he got lucky not to have needed one.

Like any complex and advanced human activity, technology, art or otherwise, it requires some context and historical knowledge to properly understand everything that the work represents, what the artist was trying to say, and why it was important and notable at the time.

It might look like scribbles of a child to the ignorant eye, but that would be an opinion from a place of ignorance, like you said.

It's fine to not enjoy it on a purely aesthetic level, but to dismiss the artist and their work without learning more about why it is considered important work would be a mistake, IMO.

Whenever I try contemplating Basquiat's work, I can't get past the "waste of my time" feeling. Sorry, but life is short. When I contemplate something, I want it to elevate my soul.

By now I learned a lot about the "artist's" interesting life. But I still prefer looking at real art.

I don't need art to "elevate my soul". I can be equally moved by it if it makes be feel uncomfortable or confused. If it does nothing to me, however, I won't waste my time finding out about the artist or why the critics think it's important. I'll leave that to those the art evoked feeings within.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man, this looks like something my kid drew in kindergarten.

Try selling some of your youngster's kindergarten artwork and see how far you get.

I'm sorry, but SixDegrees was right; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Most artists churning out this kind of work won't sell any more than SixDegrees would. This artist got lucky and "discovered", and now these works are considered desirable, but the desire is entirely subjective.

My understanding is that good art is supposed to "say something" to its audience. Now, maybe to many people this artist's works say something good, but to my apparently ignorant eye, they say "I should have got a real job", only it turns out he got lucky not to have needed one.

Basquiat is a fascinating life to read about. His "SAMO" graffiti turned out to be a brilliant (though perhaps unintentional) bit of self-promotion - and he initially took full credit for it even though it was a team effort. He may not have made a splash in the gallery world otherwise.

For those skeptics who really would like some explanation of modern art, I strongly recommend Susie Hodge’s 2012 book “Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done That: From Slashed Canvas to Unmade Bed, Modern Art Explained.”

As greenmr posted just after you, a five year old COULD do it. Art as we know is extremely subjective and as the old saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

What makes some art worth millions and other art yard sale chic depends on the culture of the time and/or the power of influencial people. Had Warhol not blessed Basquiat his work would have likely languished in obscurity like so many others.

In the end, expression of art is whatever the artist and audience thinks it is. It's both magnificent and crap. Profound and shallow. Pure genius and incredible stupidity. Worth $100M and worth the price of used toilet paper.

For those skeptics who really would like some explanation of modern art, I strongly recommend Susie Hodge’s 2012 book “Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done That: From Slashed Canvas to Unmade Bed, Modern Art Explained.”

As greenmr posted just after you, a five year old COULD do it. Art as we know is extremely subjective and as the old saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

...

It's art, baby.

Definitely agree with regard to inate ability. I teach a variety of computer graphics classes, and some of these have drawing components. Some students will say “but I can’t draw” and I always answer with “I bet you could draw when you were five!”

Funny anecdote: when I was in second grade, I was enrolled in a printmaking class at the local art center. My mom had me in all kinds of extracurricular classes in childhood. So, I made a print, mostly simple lines, lots of black ink on white paper, so the lines were white. It was chosen for the end-of-term exhibit. It took a second place ribbon. The instructor told my mom that I had a remarkable grasp of the abstract for someone my age (paraphrasing, I wasn’t present for the conversation).

The punchline is, it wasn’t an attempt at abstract art; it was a picture of a rocket on a launch ramp. And they accidentally hung it upside down.

My point is, the motivations of a typical five-year-old and a mature artist may be very different.

There's certainly a subjective component in aesthetic appreciation, but there are also objective components in the artist's technique and how different elements in a work inspire the viewer. Reducing art to "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a mistake—as is abdicating your own judgment and letting someone else tell you that something is beautiful, worthy, meaningful or important.

Basquiat seems to have been much more talented as a salesman, marketer or networker than an artist, judging by the piece in this article.

There's certainly a subjective component in aesthetic appreciation, but there are also objective components in the artist's technique and how different elements in a work inspire the viewer. Reducing art to "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a mistake—as is abdicating your own judgment and letting someone else tell you that something is beautiful, worthy, meaningful or important.

Basquiat seems to have been much more talented as a salesman, marketer or networker than an artist, judging by the piece in this article.

Of course, formal training isn't a requirement. Richard Wagner rather famously had only a bit of it, and did rather poorly at it, preferring to pick things up and compose them "by ear."

Style, though, is always deliberate.

Picasso’s a good point. My mother was always going on about his earlier work, “pre-Picasso”, being much better. That’s missing the point: he was run-of-the-mill, talented, but essentially not particularly interesting. Deliberately inventing his own style made him (rightly) into a superstar. I don’t like most of his work, but that’s not to say the man isn’t very deserving of praise by people more discerning than me.

There’s an apocryphal story how he didn’t have his wallet and paid for a meal by sketching something on a napkin. The restaurateur asked if he could sign it. To which Picasso replied he was paying for his meal, not buying the restaurant ;-).

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man, this looks like something my kid drew in kindergarten.

Try selling some of your youngster's kindergarten artwork and see how far you get.

I'm sorry, but SixDegrees was right; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Most artists churning out this kind of work won't sell any more than SixDegrees would. This artist got lucky and "discovered", and now these works are considered desirable, but the desire is entirely subjective.

My understanding is that good art is supposed to "say something" to its audience. Now, maybe to many people this artist's works say something good, but to my apparently ignorant eye, they say "I should have got a real job", only it turns out he got lucky not to have needed one.

Basquiat is a fascinating life to read about. His "SAMO" graffiti turned out to be a brilliant (though perhaps unintentional) bit of self-promotion - and he initially took full credit for it even though it was a team effort. He may not have made a splash in the gallery world otherwise.

The thing that annoys me about Basquiat is there are many more talented artists that came up in that scene at the same time, and even started painting on canvas (as opposed to on the street or on trains) at the same time, but they didn’t die of a heroin OD and so their work is not fetching eight figures at auction even though it’s better.

But as I often say about design, it’s all subjective and just because I think LEE or CRASH or DAZE were more talented, doesn’t mean others do too.

Of course, formal training isn't a requirement. Richard Wagner rather famously had only a bit of it, and did rather poorly at it, preferring to pick things up and compose them "by ear."

Style, though, is always deliberate.

Picasso’s a good point. My mother was always going on about his earlier work, “pre-Picasso”, being much better. That’s missing the point: he was run-of-the-mill, talented, but essentially not particularly interesting. Deliberately inventing his own style made him (rightly) into a superstar. I don’t like most of his work, but that’s not to say the man isn’t very deserving of praise by people more discerning than me.

There’s an apocryphal story how he didn’t have his wallet and paid for a meal by sketching something on a napkin. The restaurateur asked if he could sign it. To which Picasso replied he was paying for his meal, not buying the restaurant ;-).

It’s not apocryphal. If you go to the Colomb d’Or in St Paul de Vence the dining room has many pieces of art that were given by artists in exchange for meals or lodging.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man, this looks like something my kid drew in kindergarten.

Try selling some of your youngster's kindergarten artwork and see how far you get.

I'm sorry, but SixDegrees was right; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Most artists churning out this kind of work won't sell any more than SixDegrees would. This artist got lucky and "discovered", and now these works are considered desirable, but the desire is entirely subjective.

My understanding is that good art is supposed to "say something" to its audience. Now, maybe to many people this artist's works say something good, but to my apparently ignorant eye, they say "I should have got a real job", only it turns out he got lucky not to have needed one.

Basquiat is a fascinating life to read about. His "SAMO" graffiti turned out to be a brilliant (though perhaps unintentional) bit of self-promotion - and he initially took full credit for it even though it was a team effort. He may not have made a splash in the gallery world otherwise.

The thing that annoys me about Basquiat is there are many more talented artists that came up in that scene at the same time, and even started painting on canvas (as opposed to on the street or on trains) at the same time, but they didn’t die of a heroin OD and so their work is not fetching eight figures at auction even though it’s better.

There is so much grumbling in the comments about whether or not Basquiat's work is deserving of acclaim & that it occurred because of where he happened to be & who he knew.Why would the arts be exempt from what routinely happens in entertainment, small offices, or large corporations every day? I find it wonderfully interesting how people feel so passionately that there must somehow be more honesty in the visual arts than in other areas.

I'm not commenting whether Basquiat is deserving or undeserving. Time shakes everything out.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man, this looks like something my kid drew in kindergarten.

Try selling some of your youngster's kindergarten artwork and see how far you get.

I'm sorry, but SixDegrees was right; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Most artists churning out this kind of work won't sell any more than SixDegrees would. This artist got lucky and "discovered", and now these works are considered desirable, but the desire is entirely subjective.

My understanding is that good art is supposed to "say something" to its audience. Now, maybe to many people this artist's works say something good, but to my apparently ignorant eye, they say "I should have got a real job", only it turns out he got lucky not to have needed one.

Basquiat is a fascinating life to read about. His "SAMO" graffiti turned out to be a brilliant (though perhaps unintentional) bit of self-promotion - and he initially took full credit for it even though it was a team effort. He may not have made a splash in the gallery world otherwise.

The thing that annoys me about Basquiat is there are many more talented artists that came up in that scene at the same time, and even started painting on canvas (as opposed to on the street or on trains) at the same time, but they didn’t die of a heroin OD and so their work is not fetching eight figures at auction even though it’s better.

The thing that annoys me about Basquiat is there are many more talented artists that came up in that scene at the same time, and even started painting on canvas (as opposed to on the street or on trains) at the same time, but they didn’t die of a heroin OD and so their work is not fetching eight figures at auction even though it’s better.

But as I often say about design, it’s all subjective and just because I think LEE or CRASH or DAZE were more talented, doesn’t mean others do too.

If you like the other stuff better, but the market values Basquiat more highly, this is great news for you -- you can get what you want, at low low prices. Heck, your house might even be worth more than the art you display in it!

That said, a lot of artists tend to use less-than-archival materials. Quite a lot of 20th century art is going to turn out to have a very limited lifespan.

Good. Most of that junk is not worth preserving, same as with the majority of the digital detritus that is produced in enormous amounts every single day and that will equally be lost to oblivion. Thankfully.